Sunday, August 26, 2012

In my past couple game projects, I never had a proper button system; every clickable button I wrote was ad-hoc and thusly very annoying to write.I came up with a really simple but flexible button system for my C projects. This post is going to be pretty short, so here's a diagram to summarize everything:

As you can see, the button object takes a function pointer as a parameter during construction. This function is what I refer to as exec. The exec function allows for a button to perform any action on-click. The exec function can take a general purpose parameter, perhaps defaulted to type int or void pointer. Within the exec function any necessary typecasting can be hidden away within it.The exec functions will often times have additional dependencies throughout your program, in order to provide their desired functionality. For example I might need my exec function to create a live game object on-click. I'd need to include any headers required for creating game objects into my button system in order for this to work. For this reason the exec functions should be abstracted into their own separate file.Alternatively one can make use of a map of identifiers to exec pointers in order to cut down on file dependencies. By mapping, of perhaps a string identifier, to an exec pointer the button class can then take the identifier upon creation rather than the pointer itself. The various exec functions can then be placed into file systems that pertain to the type of functionality the exec function itself provides. A registration of each exec function into the table would be required.As for button behavior, I decided to create a few different types of Update functions for each button. Once a button has detected an on-click and has called its exec function, the Update function is called each cycle until the button is ready to detect another click and call its exec again. Since there can be multiple types of buttons each requiring its own unique update, the button object also takes a pointer to an Update function on creation. Here's a couple examples of button updates I've written:

These two buttons act like a standard button press in most GUI systems. One has a slight delay for how fast you can actually click the button, and a debouncer that requires a release of the mouse key before update actually starts using DT to calculate the current time duration. The other acts more like a spray brush where you can just hold down the click button on have exec called repeatedly with a pause between calls.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

When creating game objects within your game, you will likely want to start using new or malloc all over the place. This is bad! Every object should have a clear owner, and there should be a single interface for creating any object. Take a look at this code:

void ExampleFunc( void )
{
object *GO = new SomeGameObjectType( );

// Who owns this object?

// What headers do I need to include?
}

The above code does work, although it creates a giant mess of file dependencies. Suddenly one would require a header file for all the various object definitions in order to use the new operator everywhere. Furthermore, handling of attaching the object to some sort of owner will have to be done everywhere that the new keyword is used.A factory should be used to create game objects in a unified way. Here's an example of the simplest form of an object factory:

However there are some problems with this type of factory. One is that the factory will still have annoying file dependencies requiring the user to make another include, and modify the switch statement each time a new game object is designed. Examine the following:

The above example shows the usage of the object factory when strings are mapped to types of objects. This setup is the ideal interface one would desire, as a single include to the ObjectFactory header is all that is required to create any type of object. The previous examples were mapping integers of an enumeration type to object types, which would require modification to the switch statement run in the enum, as well as manual updating to the enumeration itself.So now that we've identified the ideal interface for creating game objects, we still need to make sure that the game objects created have a clear owner. Mapping of strings to game object types will need to be implemented, and cutting down on file dependencies of the the GameObjectFactory file itself is still something to be solved as well. By using a map (perhaps std::map) or hash table we can use a string identifier to fetch some value. Here's what we want our factory to look like:

object *CreateObject( char *type )
{
return map[type]->Create( );
}

By mapping a string to a creator function of the type of object desired, all file dependencies except that of those required to utilize the table (map in the above example) are eliminated. Furthermore, whenever a new game object type is designed, all that is needed to be done to ensure compatibility with our factory is a single registration call.There are some details about the Create function that should be discussed. The Create function is specific to each type of game object, and the interface for each Create function needs to be identical. To ensure this, each type of game object should have a single class called the creator. The creator object for each class derives from a base Creator class to ensure a clear and consistent interface.

What we've now created is called a distributed factory. All file dependencies are hidden by registration in using a hash table data structure to provide the mapping of typeless strings to actual types of game objects. The creation of objects has a unified interface, and there's a single access point (the object factory) that allows the creation of all types of game objects that are registered within its data table of types. There's one last small problem to solve: who owns the created objects? This answer can of course vary, but luckily there can be a single point of object management, like so:

And there we have it! A properly structured object factory. To further the awesome might of the factory, one could easily add in deserialization to the factory, since the factory is already working with abstract strings as type identifiers. Serialization, however, is for a future post!Factories like this also interface very well with scripting languages :)Additional reading:C++ for Game Programmers: Noel Llopis - Chapter 13

Friday, August 10, 2012

Generic programming is style of programming that is typeless, as in the type of data to be used is not determined at the time the code was written. In C++ this is achieved with templating. I know of two ways to perform generic programming in C. One way is to use pointer typecasting. It's important to understand that when you typecast a pointer no data is modified within the pointer; how the data the pointer points to is interpreted is changed. This can be utilized to create generic algorithms and functionality.

For example a linked list data structure can be created utilizing pointer typecasting where the data to be held by a node is typecasted to a single type no matter what the actual type of the data is. Usually a void * is used in this case to prevent a dereference to data of unknown type. However, this method can only be used when access to the data held by the node (the data pointed by the void *) does not need to be accessed.A more well-rounded (in my opinion) approach to generic programming in C is to make use of the preprocessor directive ##.## pastes two tokens together to create a new token. Usage of the ## operator is known as token pasting, or token concatenation. There's a whole lot of documentation on the ## operator. If you're not familiar with it, you need to do some familiarizing before reading on.All it does is take two tokens within a macro and stick them together to create a new token. Example:

In the above example varval will need to be defined in order to avoid compiler errors, perhaps by using it as the name of a variable to define.Token pasting is utilized to solve an age old problem in C of creating various functions to achieve the same problem. For example, I've written many linked lists in C and one day, I finally decide "I will never write another linked list in C". I'm sick and tired of having to write a new set of functions for each type of data that I need a new linked list for.By using the ## operator one can automate the process of duplicating code to create new functions and new definitions based off of data type. This is much like templating in C++, except not nearly as user-friendly, yet still fun and satisfying to try.Since there's a great need in C to duplicate code for various data types, and the ## operator allows us to create new tokens with two other tokens, we can use the type of the data to create a new name for a new set of functionality for each type of data desired.Examine the following:

As you can see, it can be really annoying to write different code for different types of data, when the code itself is highly redundant or even identical. However by providing the GENERIC_MAX macro a data type, a new function can be automatically generated by the C preprocessor! The MAX token is concatenated with the TYPE parameter to form a new function definition. Providing the GENERIC_MAX macro with type int will result in a new function being defined named int_MAX. Creating new sets of functionality of anything can be as simple as declaring or defining with a couple calls to a macro.It might seem a bit self-defeating however to have to figure out what the new name of your generated function is going to be in order to call it. A very simple utility macro should be used to wrap around your generated generic functions. More information on how to do this is shown later in the post.This can be taken further and be applied to even an abstract data type, such as a linked list. I've constructed myself a generic linked list.

The above code is an example definition of a macro that defines a generic node type. The type of the node is used in creating new name definitions wherever the node's type is required in the structure definition.

Above is an example of how to define a macro to define a function to create a new node of specified type based on the previous node definition.You might be thinking that it would be a bit annoying to call so many different define and declare macros for each structure and function. You can actually just declare all structures and function prototypes within a single macro, I called mine DECLARE_LIST, which declares all structure types and function prototypes, as well as some utility macros required to use the generic linked list. I also have a DEFINE_LIST macro that defines all functions used in the generic linked list.For abstract data types such as lists or stacks or queues, you'll probably want some additional utility functions to actually call the various generic functions you've defined. Here is an example set of utility functions I've made for my generic linked list:

As you can see wrappers for the various generic functions are needed to properly call them (unless you want to manually figure out what the name of the function generated for whatever type you're currently using is). There's also a couple macros for getting the generated type associated with a provided type.

Drawbacks:There is one major drawback to the ## operator strategy; you cannot use * in the type name, or spaces in the type name. If you need to use a pointer as your type, you'll have to typedef your pointer into a single valid token and pass the typedef'd type to the generic macros.There is another thing that can be considered a drawback: you cannot have a pointer to a macro. As such debugging macros can be very very tedious. I myself had to generate a processed file and compile with the expanded macro in order to pinpoint where I originally had some compiling errors when creating my generic linked list.

I wrote a previous post on Class-Like Structures for usage in C, in order to create objects that would allow for both inheritance and polymorphism. However, it's annoying to keep a pointer to each type of required function for each type of object, and often times you'll need fancy typecasting in multiple locations in order to avoid compiler warnings.

In C++ each class that contains methods also has a virtual table (vtable). A vtable is simply a pointer to a collection of function pointers. In C++ member functions pointers (pointers to member functions, or methods) aren't actually the exact same as function pointers, but the concept of the vtable in C++ is the same as in C; the vtable keeps track of what functions are available for use by the object.

Luckily the murkiness of member function pointers are completely avoided when working with C and pure function pointers. A vtable in C can consist of a structure with each data member as a function pointer, or an array of function pointers. Whichever style chosen should be chosen based on preference as either method of implementation can be fine. I personally like using a structure.Lets take a look at the structure defined in my older post:

This structure requires memory space for each location. This is unnecessary and a bit annoying to handle during initialization, and can lead to annoying typecasting in various locations. Here's what the new object should look like if we introduce a vtable:

Since a vtable is in use in the game object, typecasting may be necessary if the parameters of the various functions of the vtable differ from object to object. However a single typecast is all that is necessary during initialization. Typecasting the vtable itself to change the parameters of the functions within the vtable doesn't actually modify any memory. It's important to understand that when you typecast a pointer (and consequently a vtable pointer) no data is modified within the pointer; how the data the pointer points to is interpreted is changed.So what about the code for this typecasting? Here's a small example of some initialization code for initializing the vtable data member:

It's important to note that some extra parentheses are required to force typecasting to occur to avoid confusing operator precedence issues. The vtable should be initialized directly after allocation of the object. This ensures that the vtable pointer will never be accessed without being initialized.The definitions of the SomeOther functions can have any type of parameters to your heart's desire!It may be a bit confusing having a Construct function within the vtable when allocation of the object and initialization of the vtable data member happen outside of the Construct function. This is because you cannot actually call the Construct function from the vtable until the vtable is allocated and initialized. Handling of creation of objects would be best done with the Factory Pattern.I'll likely write a post in the near future on the factory pattern :)